LA Kaiseki/Sushi: Urasawa (July 2012)

I decided to stop by Urasawa once again while I was in town, and I went with two old friends. Here’s an excerpt from my friend’s site about this meal—it was basically his first really good sushi meal!

“This all changed this summer. My friend invited me to join him for a meal at Urasawa when I visited Los Angeles in July. I was able to see the craftsmanship and attention to detail that contributes to each course in person and experience the end result. The sushi really stood out to me. The balance of flavor and the just-right density of the sushi rice just worked so well for each of the sushi courses. Yes, the items placed on top of the sushi rice were exquisite, but Hiro and Ken could have put almost anything on top of that rice and the end result would still be amazing.

The seed was planted in my head. Amazing food isn’t just about the individual ingredients on the plate, but how they are put together. And I wanted to see what else is out there. I started reading more about food online and talking with my friend about other restaurants to try in the future. I then remembered that I have a copy of The French Laundry Cookbook, and dug it out. Suddenly the recipes made a lot more sense. The goal is to make every component that goes into a dish as perfect as possible. I then searched online for “french laundry at home” to find other people’s experiences with the recipes, and stumbled upon Carol Blymire’s blog “French Laundry At Home”. The post that Carol wrote after cooking every dish in The French Laundry Cookbook was extremely inspiring and has a list of great first recipes to try. I decided that this is where I’m going to start my gastronomic adventure.”

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My friend Simon took a picture of Rodeo Drive (where the restaurant is located) during this trip, so I’ll just include that here!